


Can't Seem to Face Up to the Facts

by indevan



Series: Rock Band AU [9]
Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Alternate Universe - Rock Band, Halloween, Murder Mystery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-07
Updated: 2017-09-07
Packaged: 2018-12-25 02:20:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12026046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indevan/pseuds/indevan
Summary: “That’s a surefire way to die, Raditz.  We have to stick together.” Kakarrot folds his arms over his chest. “We’re in a horror movie now and I’m an expert at them.”





	Can't Seem to Face Up to the Facts

“No!  No!  Absolutely not!”

“Aw, but Chi-Chi…”

Kakarrot’s making that puppy face at her but she will not waver.  He’s only just gotten back from tour and he lays  _ this _ on her?

“We aren’t having our wedding on Halloween,” she says, shaking her head. “First off, that’s way too soon.  Secondly, no!”

For as long as she’s known him, Kakarrot’s been obsessed with horror movies.  Around Halloween, he tends to work himself into an excited lather.  Usually, she finds it cute but more often than not, it involves him watching super gory movies, accidentally letting Gohan watch them and then she’s the one up with the sobbing child all night while he skips off to play a show.  Well, not this year.

“I thought you liked horror movies,” he says, pouting.

“You know I don’t and that I pretended to back in  _ high school _ because you would always get adorably excited whenever one came out.”

And then she’d hear him have to analyze every single scene of it.  For someone who was failing out of eleventh grade when she met him, Kakarrot is a genius when it comes to things that motivate him.

“Okay, fine.  But--”

Chi-Chi shakes her head.

“No buts.  You just got back and we haven’t had any time to plan.  Our wedding is definitely not going to be  _ next week.” _

Kakarrot pouts again and while his pout is normally a fairly powerful weapon, Chi-Chi’s built up an immunity to its wiles.  She steps forward and snakes her arms around his neck.

“I know you get excited, but let’s take it easy.”

She kisses him and he pouts against her lips but then kisses her back.

“Alright, fine.” He perks up. “Can we do a movie marathon, at least?”

“No.  Go bug the guys to do one with you.”

He screws his face up.

“I can’t.  Vegeta says if I make him watch  _ Nightmare on Elm Street _ one more time, he’s gonna kill me in  _ my _ dreams…”

Chi-Chi has to admit that if there was one person who would be able to bend the laws of reality if he was pissed off enough, it would definitely be Vegeta.

“Well, you can’t do it here.  Goten isn’t even one yet and Gohan’s already scarred from seeing  _ IT. _  He refuses to walk by storm drains now.”

“I watched those movies all the time as a kid and I turned out fine.”

She doesn’t say that that’s debatable but only because, like it or not, he’s the love of her life.

“Can you just cool it, though?” she asked.

“We both know I’m not capable of that.”

Chi-Chi sighs.  She was afraid of that.  Since getting back together when he was on the road last year, she and Kakarrot have gotten a lot better at talking out their disagreements and working through them.  They’ve come so far not just for themselves but for their sons as well.  Even so, she knows they’re both remarkably stubborn.  She wishes  _ something _ would at least get him to not be so...much about his little obsession.

\--

Kakarrot sighs and sinks his chin into his hands.  He can’t believe that King Kai scheduled a meeting on Halloween.  Granted, their new single dropped on their Bandcamp today and it’s apparently already selling well.  He wants to talk about their next move.

“Can we hurry it up?” Vegeta asks crossly. “I’m supposed to take Trunks trick-or-treating tonight.”

Turles raises his brows.

“Awh, you’re so cute and domestic now.”

He leans across the meeting room table and narrows his eyes.

“They will never find the body, Turles.”

Broly walks back into the meeting room and looks around, confused.

“Where’s King Kai?”

Raditz shrugs.

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out.” He toys with some of his hair and says, “You find the bathroom okay?  You were gone for a while.”

Broly nods and takes his seat next to Turles.  Kakarrot sighs again.  Vegeta has a point.  It’s Goten’s first Halloween he wanted to take him and Gohan out.  There’s also a Romero marathon on TV that he doesn’t want to miss.

Turles digs some crud out of his eyes and groans dramatically.

“Is he punishing us?  What did we do this time?”

Broly fiddles with the gold chain he always wears and says, “Well, on the tour, there was the whole vomit incident--”

Turles cuts him off with a dismissive wave of his hand.  He has a point.  King Kai is usually the one mad at  _ them _ for being late.  It’s at that moment, he realizes how quiet it is in the studio.  It feels like they’re the only ones here.  Their tiny label has gotten much larger in the past year so there’s usually  _ someone _ petering around.  If not King Kai himself then his new assistant, Jaco or whoever.

“I’m leaving.” Vegeta stands, shoving his chair back angrily.

Raditz turns his hand out. “Maybe chill?  He’ll be here.”

He growls again and stalks towards the door.  Before he does, the power cuts out.  Kakarrot jumps from his seat and whips his head around to try and see in the sudden darkness.  As easy as they turned off, the lights come back on.

“Shitty wiring,” Vegeta mutters. “I’m out of here.”

He throws the door open and King Kai is in the doorway.

“Oh, there you are,” he says, folding his arms. “‘Bout fucking time.”

The manager doesn’t speak.  Clearly irritated, Vegeta waves his hand in front of his face.

“Hello?  King Kai?”

He starts to slump forward and he jumps out of the way before he falls on him.  King Kai lies face down on the carpet of the meeting room, a knife sticking out of his back.  Blood seeps from the wound onto the carpet and as his thoughts try to reassert themselves, Kakarrot’s mind settles on the hope that the rug is scotch-guarded.

“He’s dead?” Raditz asks, bewildered. “Like, dead-dead?”

Turles gets up from his seat, eyes wide.

“He’s not just dead, Radi.  He was murdered.” He waits a beat and adds, “If this was a movie, there’d be super dramatic music playing right now.”

“We should call the police,” Broly says.

Kakarrot looks at his phone and sees that there’s no service.  A quick glance around the room shows that everyone else is in a similar predicament.

“Let me try the landline.”

Raditz leans across the table to grab the receiver from the phone that sits in the middle of it.  He holds is to his ear and immediately drops it back in the cradle.

“Dead,” he reports.

“Let’s go,” Kakarrot says. “We can go and find someone.”

“Uh, while there’s a murderer loose?” Turles asks, cocking a brow. “Sure.  Let’s wander around the dark studio.  Didn’t you notice?  This is the only room that regained power.”

He hadn’t noticed before but he’s right.  Beyond the meeting room, there’s only darkness.

“And sitting here’s better?” Raditz asks. “We’re sitting ducks.  We’re better off being moving targets and finding a way out.  Let’s--”

Kakarrot’s brain finally kicks into gear at that statement.

“Don’t you  _ dare _ say ‘let’s split up’!” he cries.

Raditz blinks at him.

“What do you mean?”

He stands up from his chair and tries not to look at King Kai’s body.

“That’s a surefire way to  _ die, _ Raditz.  We have to stick together.” He folds his arms over his chest. “We’re in a horror movie now and I’m an expert at them.”

“This isn’t a movie, Kakarrot,” Vegeta snaps.  He gestures at the corpse on the floor. “This is a crime scene.”

He shakes his head and puts one hand on his hip.  On the other, he starts ticking off numbers.

“Think about it.  A bunch of attractive twenty-somethings trapped in a dark studio.  A mysterious killer takes out their manager and then starts picking them off one by one!”

Raditz gives him the same sort of look he would give him when they were kids.

“You sound too excited about this.  A man just died.”

Kakarrot grins.

“Oh, I’m terrified!  But I can get us out of this!”

None of them look convinced.  He sighs.

“Okay, at least agree with me that we should stick together in finding our way out.”

More muttering and shuffling of feet.  Vegeta sighs impatiently again.

“Whatever.  I’m going.”

He turns and then jumps back.  His foot catches on King Kai’s body and he falls back against the table.

“What are you five doing here?” Jaco asks impatiently.  He puts both hands on his hips.

“We were waiting for a meeting with King Kai.  Also, someone murdered him.”

Kakarrot gestures to the body on the floor.  He figures if he treats it lightly, he won’t start screaming.  He’s never  _ seen _ a dead body before and no amount of gory horror movies can prepare him for the reality.

“Oh, no!” Jaco pales when he looks at the body.  He’s probably regretting taking this job.

“Where were you when he got stabbed?” Raditz asks.  He slowly makes his way around the table and over to Turles.

He lowers his hands from his mouth and frowns. “What does that mean?”

“I means whatever the hell you want it to mean,” Turles says, throwing an arm around Raditz’s shoulders.

Broly sighs and says, “It means, you’re the only other person here so you might be the killer.”

Jaco’s jaw drops exaggeratedly.

“Excuse me!  I am  _ not _ the killer.  It could easily be one of you delinquents!  King Kai’s told me all about you, why--”

The lights cut out again, plunging them all into darkness.  Kakarrot bumps against the table and grabs the edge of it.  He closes his eyes, bracing him for what’s to come.  The lights come on and, sure enough, Jaco’s body is lying limply over top King Kai’s.  Any joking facade the others had is gone and everyone is staring at them both in wide-eyed fear.

“O-okay,” Raditz says shakily. “Let’s just...uh...figure out what’s going on.”

Turles throws his head back and yells, “KING KAI’S DEAD, JACO’S DEAD, WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!”

He bolts from the room, the others hot on his tail.  Even Broly has picked up the pace.  Kakarrot follows them.

“Guys, wait!  You can’t just--guys!”

He realizes he’s alone with two corpses and an icky chill works up his spine.  He takes off after them into the darkened studio.  The issue, he realizes quickly, is that this is a new studio and none of them have spent enough time in it.  Worse, he has no idea how to navigate it at night.  Kakarrot is at least able to follow the frightened, hurried steps of his friends and bandmates to catch up to them.

“We need to get out of here!” Raditz exclaims.

“I’m too young and hot and famous to die!” Turles stamps his foot.

Broly sills and lifts his head for a moment.

“You hear that?”

“Hear what?” Vegeta demands.

Kakarrot strains his ears and he hears something, too.  It’s faint.

“Kakarrot?”

Someone faraway is calling his name.  It brings to mind a floating, vengeful wraith and he shudders.

“Kakarrot?” the voice calls him again.

Vegeta shoves him away roughly.

“It wants you.  Give it your soul or whatever so the rest of us can escape.”

He shoves him back.

“Hey!”

“Kakarrot?”

The voice is getting closer and he thinks he might recognize it.

“It’s almost on us,” Raditz says. “Go on, Kakarrot.”

“Kakarrot!”

The voice sounds urgent and scared.  He doesn’t want to be fooled.  He backs up, only for Vegeta to shove him forward again.

“How many times have you said you didn’t care if you died over the years?” he asks him.

“That’s just fatalistic humor.  Now shut up and sacrifice yourself to the ghost demon.”

Another voice calls out, “Vegeta!”

Kakarrot grins victoriously and turns around.

“See?  It wants you, too.”

He tries to shove him forward but he resists.  The voices calling their names get closer and, through his fear, he can identify them.

“Oh, it’s Chi-Chi and Bulma.” His relief is immediately replaced by fear. “It’s Chi-Chi and Bulma!  What are they doing here?”

“Kakarrot?”

“Over here!”

Raditz smacks a hand over his mouth.

“Ghost demon or not, there’s still a  _ murderer _ on the loose,” he hisses, voice low.

Both girls reach them, even in the darkness, and he’s never been so glad to wrap his arms around Chi-Chi.  He hugs her tightly while ignoring the tongue-heavy reunion Bulma and Vegeta are having next to him.

“What are you two doing here?” he asks.

Chi-Chi shivers in his arms.

“We were shopping for my wedding dress and wanted to come see you but the second we stepped inside, the power went out.”

“The doors are all magnetically locked,” Bulma adds once she comes up for air. “We’re trapped.”

“The murderer probably did it,” Turles says.

“The what?” Chi-Chi demands.

“Murderer.  King Kai and his new assistant are already dead.”

“Wait.”

Raditz stills and turns around.  He waves his arm through empty air behind him.

“Broly’s gone.”

Kakarrot’s eyes have adjusted to the darkness and he sees his brother crouch down on the floor and place his hand on the carpet.  Immediately, he jumps back to his feet.

“Blood,” he reports. “I think he got Broly while we were distracted.”

“Huh,” Turles says, “By all accounts, he should be the only one of us that survives.”

Raditz throws his arms out.

“Okay, sticking together got one of us killed.  Let’s cut our losses and spread out.  He can’t kill  _ all _ of us.”

Before Kakarrot can argue, everyone shoots off in different directions, leaving him and Chi-Chi behind.

“Guys!” he calls after them and then sighs. “I  _ told _ them…”

Chi-Chi pats his chest consolingly.

“Let’s find a way out.”

He’s afraid it won’t be that easy.

\--

“Bulma?  Bulma?  Fuck.”

Vegeta curls a lip in disdain.  In the hurry to get away from the murderer, he lost Bulma.  He has no doubt that she could probably outsmart a killer but he’d still feel better knowing if she was close.

He’s somehow stumbled into the garage portion of the studio.  The building that housed it used to be a house until North Galaxy bought it and converted it.  The garage, though, is still a garage.  There aren’t any cars but it smells faintly of motor oil.  There’s even a little plastic doggie door left behind by the previous owners.

He turns back the way he came, but the door has somehow locked behind him.  Angrily, he kicks it a few times.  The wood splinters, but the door doesn’t move.

“Shit.”

He turns and looks at the control to open the garage door.  The power’s out but he has to try.  He ignores the fact that he has to stand on his tiptoes to reach up and open it and, with a mechanical groan, the door begins to rise.

“Oh, thank Christ.”

Vegeta makes his way to the door but as he approaches it, it starts to descend.  Angrily, he turns back towards the control to see a cloaked and masked figure standing at the door.

“Fuck,” he grumbles. “Really?”

The figure nods silently.  One gloved hand is on the garage door control and the other brandishes a knife.  Vegeta folds his arms over his chest.

“Y’know, Tatum was my favorite character in  _ Scream,” _ he says. “She reminds me of Bulma.  Her death was shitty, though.”

The figure nods again.  He starts to back away towards the garage door before it can approach him with the knife.  He’s cursing himself, already knowing how it’s going to go.  He just talked about it, after all.

He angles his shoulders as he shoves his way into the doggie door but it’s no use, he still gets stuck.  Cursing fluently, he kicks his legs to try and force himself through.  He hears a rumble and the door begins to rise again.

“Oh, fuck.”

\--

Raditz shines the flashlight from his cell phone through the darkened halls.  He and Turles had taken off together but he’s lost him.  In the dark, the studio seems like a labyrinth.  He isn’t sure if his cell phone will shine on a minotaur or David Bowie as he creeps through.

“Turles, come on.  Stop fucking around,” he grumbles.

He tries to think of what to do.  This isn’t what any of them planned.

“R-Radi…”

He turns at the sound of Turles’s voice and he sees a shape fall from one of the doorframes.  He catches him in his arms and feels something hot and wet seep onto his arms.

“Turles?”

He looks up at him and smiles before coughing up a mouthful of blood.  Raditz eases him back and sees several stab wounds in his chest and stomach.

“He’s…”

He jerks in his arms and slumps down on the floor.  Raditz lifts him up.

“Dude, come on.”

He waits for Turles to shoot up and yell “gotcha!” but he doesn’t.  He starts to shake.  His best friend...gone.  Just like that.  From the doorway where Turles came, he sees a tall, cloaked figure.  He sees him wipe the blade of the knife and Raditz stumbles back before he gets back to his feet.

He takes off, hearing the guy following him.

“Shit, shit, shit…”

This really isn’t how he thought he’d spend his Halloween.  He bumps into walls and corners and his foot snags a potted plant but he’s able to catch himself and not fall.  He has to find the others--he has to find his brother.

He knows, though, that he’s going to fall for the oldest horror movie trick in the book.  He can feel it the second he rounds the corner into the studio itself and he trips over the swivel chair that sits in front of the mixing board.  He gets on all fours and slowly turns to see the figure approaching him.  He kicks out and crawls out of the recording studio.  A gloved hand catches his leg and he falls down.

\--

Kakarrot keeps a hold on Chi-Chi’s hand as they navigate the darkness.  He knows the studio used to be a house and there are windows upstairs.  He knows, though, that going upstairs is a terrible idea.

“We should go find the garage,” he says, “The door might be able to open.”

She nods and presses her head against him.  Her hands are trembling and he puts his over them.  They turn a corner and his foot hits something.  He shines his phone on it and--

“Oh, no.  Turles.”

Chi-Chi buries her face in her hands and hides it in his chest.  Kakarrot pulls her away and tries to wipe the image from his mind.  Everything is so real.  They’re  _ being killed. _  He wants to call out for his brother but he’s afraid for who will answer.

“Kakarrot?  Chi-Chi?”

Bulma bursts from one of the side rooms and grabs his arm.

“Oh, thank God.  I lost Vegeta and I haven’t found  _ anyone.” _

“We’re going to try and find the garage and see if the doors still work,” he tells her.

“This place has a garage?”

“It used to be a house.”

“Oh.  Do you store, like, instruments in there?”

He shakes his head. “It’s not climate-controlled.  One of the roadies did once and Nappa nearly gutted him.”

He wishes Nappa was there, suddenly, but he has a bouncing job at one of the parties downtown.  He looks at his phone, unable to believe that it’s still so early in the night.  It’s so early and four people are dead.

They move towards the back of the studio and Kakarrot freezes.  He sees a lump in the darkness and he automatically knows who it is.

“No...no, no…”

He feels icy fear clutch his heart as he stares at his brother’s body.  A thousand thoughts run through his head.  What’s he going to tell his parents?  Or Lapis?

“Oh, baby.” Chi-Chi hugs him gently.

She pulls him away before he can completely lose it and he walks in shaking legs further back.  Bulma opens the door to the garage and immediately gasps.  She drops to her knees and, with a shaking finger, points towards the garage door.  He follows it and the icy hand grabs at his heart once more.  The body is jammed between the door and the ceiling but he knows that denim jacket anywhere.

“No!” Bulma cries out. “It can’t be…”

She buries her face in her hands and starts to cry.

“The door’s open,” Chi-Chi says. “I know that’s not what you want to hear but we have to go.”

She bats her away with one hand and resumes crying.  Kakarrot looks at Chi-Chi and he doesn’t want to  _ leave _ Bulma but they have to take this opportunity to escape.  He hears something behind them and turns to see an impossibly tall figure in a cloak.  He’s wearing a mask and approaching them slowly.  Bulma gets to her feet and runs back to the front of the garage.  Immediately, Kakarrot puts himself between the killer and Chi-Chi.

“Okay, you clearly have something against us or the label or whatever so just...kill me.  Leave Chi-Chi alone.  She didn’t  _ do _ anything.”

The killer says nothing, only tilts his head to the side.  He reaches up with a gloved hand and tugs his mask off.  Kakarrot’s eyes go wide.

“Broly?!”

He gives a smirk and says, “Don’t look so surprised.”

Kakarrot shakes his head, trying to figure out what’s going on.

“But you died!”

He shakes his head condescendingly.

“Don’t count out a corpse, Kakarrot.  You know that.”

“But...why?  Why did you do it?”

Broly grins, something he’s  _ never _ seen him do, and taps on his lower lip with the tip of the knife.

“Why?  You want a motive?” He shrugs. “Well, I don’t really believe in motives.  I mean, did Norman Bates have a motive?”

He’s even using one of his favorite movies against him.  He knows that Broly never liked him but this is ridiculous.  More than that, he thought that they were getting to be something approaching friends.

“Who  _ are _ you?”

He feels Chi-Chi’s hands grasp the back of his t-shirt tightly.  Broly’s grin grows wider.

“I’m the devil.”

The moment the words leave his mouth, gunshots ring out.  Broly slumps forward onto the cement of the garage.  Behind him, covered in blood, is Turles.

“You’re alive?” he asks.

“Not for long,” he admits and winces, leaning on the doorway. “Get out, okay?”

He doesn’t know what to do.  His best friend is dead in a garage door, his brother is dead, and apparently they were  _ all _ killed by Broly, who’s now lying dead on the floor.  He takes a step back and Broly gets up.  Chi-Chi grabs more tightly to his shirt as his gloved hand clamps around Kakarrot’s arm.

“Gotcha.”

“What?”

Turles gets up off of the doorway, holding his sides as he shakes in laughter.  It’s then that Kakarrot notices that the gun he’s carrying has a bright orange cap on the tip, denoting that it’s a toy.

“What?” he asks again.

He turns to see that Chi-Chi’s hiding laughter behind her hand and Bulma’s smiling, too.  Vegeta’s body begins to kick.

“Someone get me the fuck down from here.”

“I’ve got you, babe.”

Bulma turns and tugs down the door enough for him to wriggle out through the doggie door.

“Seriously, what’s going on?”

Chi-Chi puts a hand on his face.

“I’m sorry, sweetie, but we wanted to show you that you take this spooky, horror thing too far.”

Broly nods and holds up his knife, which he can see now is plastic.  Turles licks some blood from his fingers and wiggles the digits at him.

“Corn syrup,” he tells him.

He sees Raditz in the doorway, grinning broadly, and even King Kai and Jaco are there.

“Wait, so you all teamed up to teach me a lesson?”

“Yup,” Raditz says.  He comes up and slings an arm around his shoulders. “Sorry ‘bout it, baby bro.”

“That’s why I was barely speaking in there,” Chi-Chi admits. “I’m not a good actress and I didn’t want to mess it up.”

“But...the power.”

King Kai holds up his phone.

“I have an app that controls it.  The lights were just off.”

“And the landline was fine.  I faked it being down,” Raditz adds.

“Bulma made a device that jammed only your phone’s signal,” Vegeta says.

“And the doors definitely weren’t locked,” she says gleefully.

“And I like being included,” Jaco says.

He can’t believe this, but he supposes they have a point.  He  _ can _ probably tone it down a little.  King Kai shakes his head.

“Alright, now go.  You’re supposed to perform at the label’s Halloween party tonight.”

“The what?” Turles asks.

King Kai heaves an exasperated sigh like it’s a regular night and most of them aren’t covered in red food dye and corn syrup.

“I told Jaco to e-mail you all this week.”

He glares at his assistant who ducks his head down.

“Oh.  Whoops.”

Raditz scratches at his head, smearing some fake blood in his hair.

“Uh, if we had known about that, we would have spent more time practicing and less time on this super involved slasher prank.”

“Whatever.  Just be ready in an hour.  And put on some real costumes.”

Kakarrot still hasn’t quite registered everything that’s happened in the past two minutes.  He looks at Chi-Chi who’s smiling at him in that way of hers and he can’t even be mad.

“We weren’t actually looking at wedding dresses,” she says. “We were buying costumes and you and me are going to match.  And so are the boys.”

He beams.

“Really?”

“It’s a  _ good _ way to show how much you love Halloween.”

He’s beginning to get that.

**Author's Note:**

> http://vertigoats.tumblr.com


End file.
